The Princess of Las Pulgas (36 page)

Keith’s done it. He’s
crossed the border from Channing to Las Pulgas. When he looks at
me, he smiles. If it weren’t for the dark bruise along his left jaw
his smile would be exactly the one I remember from a long time
ago.

When I turn to say
something to Juan. He’s vanished.

Chapter 51

Later
that
afternoon,
I’m
stretched
across
my
bed
with
my
Jack-in-the-Box
on
my
chest,
twirling
the
handle
while
escape
fantasies
play
in
my
head.
Suddenly
I
hear
a
loud,
rhythmic
knocking
on
the
front
door.
I
set
Jack
down
on
the
bed
and
hurry
to
see
who’s
at
the
door.
When
I
peer
through
the
peephole,
I
instantly
understand
why
those
knocks
sounded
so
strange.

It’s
K.T.,
leaning
against
the
iron
railing.

I
unlatch
the
door
and
crack
it
open.

“Hey,
it’s
the
girl
what
whupped
that
bad-ass
Chico.
How
do
you
like
that
beat?”
she
asks,
repeating
it
and
holding
up
her
fist.

“How
did
you
—?
What
are
you
doing
here?”

“I
got
my
ways.”
K.T.
pokes
her
nose
around
the
door.
“You’re
supposed
to
in-vite
people
in,
when
they
come
visiting.
Don’t
you
know
that?”

I back up and K.T. stumps
her way inside, as if she’s inspecting the apartment before moving
in. “Not bad. It’s smaller than where I thought the great writer
would live, but don’t they live in teensy places called . . . what
are they?

Starts with a
G.”

“Garrets.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” She
spins around on her rubber heel.

“So, where’s your
room?”

I point down the hall and
K.T. doesn’t wait for me to lead the way. She’s already at the door
to my bedroom.

“It’s dark in here. How
come the black curtain?” K.T. drops onto the bed. “Ouch!” She’s up
in a shot.

“Oh, gawd!” I retrieve
Jack. Please don’t let him be broken even more than he
was.

“What you doin’ with that
in your bed?”

“Playing with
it?”

K.T. starts to sit on the
bed again, but stops halfway down. “You got anymore surprises in
here?”

I risk my exasperated look,
but K.T. ignores me and eases onto the covers. “So. About that
ex-cep-tion-al story you wrote for English.”

I’m double blinking,
hearing her. “Did you say
exceptional
?” I ask.

“What’s the problem? You
think I don’t know any big words?”

“No. I mean,
yes!”

She crosses her arms and
slaps me with her Las Pulgas stare.

“You’re not exactly easy to
know, K.T. I keep expecting you to bite my head off.”

She waggles her foot and
does that shifty-head move. “I just don’t like snobs, is
all.

First Juan with his
Princess title, and now K.T.
“But I’m not
a snob!”

She’s on her feet and in my
face. “And I’m not
stupid
!”

“Okay. You’re right. You’re
not, and I’m not.”

Her eyes tense up into a
squint, as if she’s examining me closely for one glimmer of
snobiness. “So what was that note about?”

“What note?” I ask,
baffled.

“The one you wrote on my
paper. You know, that stuff about acting tough not doin’ the job,
and that anger-guilt business.” She crosses her arms and shifts her
head again, waiting.

“I guess I just meant that
no matter how tough you act—”

“Or stuck up?”

I clear my throat. “Right.
Or that either. Yes—what’s inside . . . still won’t go away.” Her
wall is different from mine, but her reason for building hers is
the same as mine. But whatever the reason we have them, our walls
just don’t work. Realizing this, I suddenly miss Juan, and wish I
could rerun that night at the party. I’d say goodbye. I’d stop
hiding behind my Princess wall.

But K.T. interrupts my train of thought.
“You got something cold to drink?” she asks and walks around me,
then goes into the kitchen. There, without hesitating, she opens
the refrigerator. It’s like she’s already taken up residence.

“I’ll get us some grape juice,” I tell
her.

K.T. sits at the table where Mom’s books are
scattered.

“Those are my Mom’s. Go ahead and push them
out of the way.”

“Your mom. Where’s she at?”

“Work. She’s a cashier at
Las Pulgas Market.” I hand K.T. a glass of juice and sit across
from her.

“Get out. I bet I seen her
lots a times.”

“Probably. She’s’ there
five days a week.”

“What’s your mom like?”
K.T. tosses down her juice.

“Depends. When she’s tired
she gets really cranky. How about your— I’m sorry. I—”

“Oh, stop already. So I
don’t have a mom. No secret about that. I got a grandma. You got
one of those?”

“No. My grandmothers died
before I was old enough to know them. Only my dad’s father is
alive. He lives in Florida. I never see him.”

“So there you are. I got
something you don’t and visa versa.” K.T. gets up. “I gotta
go.”

When she’s outside, she
tells me, “My cast comes off
this
week.”

“That’s great. Bet you’ll
be glad to be rid of that.”

K.T. turns to leave, but
then she stops and looks at me with her head tilted to the side.
“You know, I got to thinking about that dress, and what you said
about your date and all.”

“Sorry about all that
emotional stuff. I should be used to disappointments by
now.”

“I got a whole story I’m
gonna write about dis-ap-point-ments. You can give me your comments
on that one, too.”

Great. Another rap
poem.
And yet, K.T. went to the trouble to
find out where I live, she came to see me, and she hasn’t even been
nasty. Our relationship has moved from hostile, to cautious
circling, to my sharing something personal with her. So I guess I
can handle another of her rap poems.

“I just wanted to tell you
the guy that dumped you is purely stupid.”

“He’s not exactly stupid,
but he is a giant walking ego. I probably would have been bored by
the second dance anyway.” I’d like to believe that. But next
Saturday I’ll be right here in this dumpy apartment alone while my
friends have a blast at the Spring Fling.

“Actually,” I tell her.
“The guy I wanted to have ask me—Oh, well. That’s not important
anymore.”

“So what’re you doing next
Saturday since you’re not going to that fancy dance?”

“I’m staying in bed all day
and hide. What else?”

She rolls her eyes, then
says, “That sounds great, but you wanna go to the mall, catch a
movie with us instead?”

“Us?”

“Me and my girlfriends.”
K.T. looks at me as if I’m a disappointing pupil.

I didn’t expect an
invitation to join K.T and her crew. But then I never expected to
see K.T. turn up at my door., either, or that I’d answer with,
“What time?”

“Meet us about noon at
CineMall Corner.”

Then K.T. swings away,
pounding her rubber heel on the cement as if she’d like to wear it
down before she parts company with it.

Chapter 52

The day after the fight, when I venture into
my classes, I expect stares and more of those insect sounds at my
back, and probably some really sweet comments about my butthead
brother or the fight that this time I was a part of.

Chico’s on suspension for three days, and
nobody knows what’ll happen to the track team. If Bins carries out
his threat to shut down all school activities, Las Pulgas won’t
even be able to compete in the race against Channing next
month.

Anthony slouches into English and for once,
doesn’t leer or threaten me with his eyes. K.T. plunks herself into
her seat, doing some kind of serious rap in her head, but I might
as well be a desk instead of sitting in one, because she doesn’t
give me her usual mouthy greeting. I wonder if I’m still invited to
the movie on Saturday, or if she’s changed her mind for some
unknown reason, and if I should even ask.

Juan talks to Jamal and Pavan, then goes to
his seat at the back of the room with nothing more than a glance in
my direction. It’s such a brief connection, it almost seems as if
it didn’t happen. Only the extra thud in my heart tells me that it
did happen, and how important that tiny moment was to me.

This is so weird. Nobody’s
paying any attention to me and I can’t be imagining it. Maybe I’ve
become invisible? I’ve prayed for that, but now that I seem to have
managed it, it doesn’t feel very good. It’s
almost
worse than being the center
of attention. I totally thought my life would be easier after the
track team accepted Keith’s apology, but instead it’s worse. Now
it’s like I’m the Edmund nobody seems to want around.

I reach down to finger my bracelet,
forgetting for a second that it’s gone. I thought maybe I’d left it
in the dressing room after the play, but when I looked, it wasn’t
there. Nobody brought it to the lost and found when I checked in
the office, either. I think about what K.T told me that day in the
mall. “Once you got the miseries, my grandma says you got to go
through a long dark journey before you come out the other side.” I
guess I can add one more misery to that trip.

The morning slides into
noon, then into chemistry. For a change, Doc doesn’t growl when he
says, “Take notes.” I’m excited he notices me. ATt least I haven’t
become invisible to him. While he’s setting up the experiment, the
teacher passes back our chemistry tests from last week. I give Doc
the paper with the A at the top and wait, hoping I’ve at least
passed.

“This is yours,” Doc says
and hands the paper back to me and picks up two beakers from the
counter.

“Huh? I’ve aced a test?
Omigod” Then, before I think about what I’m doing, I throw my arms
around his neck. “Doc you’re the best.” When I step back his face
is red, and he’s standing with one beaker in each hand, his eyes
glazed. I’ve been learning a lot by watching and taking down
whatever Doc tells me and I didn’t even realize it.

“Okay,” I say. “What are we
doing today?” I pick up my pencil and wait for him to
recover.

After class, I stash my
books in my locker and start out the door to meet Mom. As I take
the steps down, K.T.’s voice comes from behind me, calling, “Hey,
Des, wait up!”

When I turn, she’s
barreling down the stairs after me. She
is
talking to me.
Why am I so relieved about that?
I can’t answer that, but I do know that I’m
suddenly not so lonely as I was this morning, when I thought she
wasn’t speaking to me.

“Take a look at this,” she
says and sticks her leg out. “I got it off during
lunch.”

Her cast is gone, and her
leg looks like it’s been in some kind of dark, underground storage
unit for a really long time.

“It’s skinny!” I tell her.
“I think I’ll wrap a cast around myself for a couple of months and
see if that works. Dieting isn’t working for me.”

“You got a little
self-image problem, girl.” K.T. says. I’m used to her ridicule, but
her jabs still irk me enough that she enjoys my
reactions.